I am a sucker for old photographs and for months now, I’ve been meaning to write about Shorpy here because it’s something that needs to be shared. They call Shorpy the “100 year old photo blog” or “History in HD.” It is basically a vintage photography blog featuring thousands of high-definition and very high resolution images from the 1850s to 1950s. Some of the pictures from the ’40s and ’50s are in stunning, HD-like color. It’s so odd seeing the clarity in some of those color photos because if you weren’t alive during that time, it’s really very hard to picture every day life in color. Now you can- here’s one of my favorites. There’s so much to like on this site and much time to be wasted if you’re a fan of photography.The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago and is featured in a couple of photographs.

You can also join and submit your own photos, though I suspect they have to be of utmost quality. I believe that most of the user-submitted stuff is 4×5 Kodachome color slides and you see those interspersed in the site as well. It’s just so well done that it deserves mention and exploration.